Mockup Reviews

At various stages of lunar module design, mockup reviews were conducted
to demonstrate progress and ferret out weaknesses. These inspections
were formal occasions, with a board composed of customer and contractor
officials and presided over by a chairman from the Apollo office in
Houston. Usually present were top management personnel from the NASA
Office of Manned Space Flight in Washington and from the field centers,
as well as a number of astronauts. The vehicle was thrown open for
inspection, and the astronauts were expected to climb in, out, over, and
around, to get a feel for the craft.

The first of these reviews, on "M-1" (a wooden mockup of the
crew compartment), took place 16-18 September 1963. In general, the
cockpit layout was acceptable, although the locations of some equipment
and the arrangement of controls and instruments still had to be settled.
The astronauts liked the visibility through the triangular, canted
windows and the standup crew positions; but they wanted the instrument
panel changed so both flight stations would have identical displays.38

TM-1 mockup of the lunar module with propulsion system models. The
TRW version of the descent engine (left) won the development contract.
The model of the ascent engine (center) submitted by Bell Aerospace
Corp. subsequently competed with Rocketdyne's version, and both
companies later participated in the development.

About six months later, 24-26 March 1964, Grumman showed its second
model, "TM-1," a wooden representation of a complete vehicle.
Again attention centered on the cockpit arrangement: support and
restraint systems, equipment layout, lighting provisions, location of
displays and controls, and general mobility within the cabin and through
the hatches. On this occasion, a number of changes were suggested. After
evaluation and approval by the review board, these modifications were
incorporated into the TM-1 to make up a "design freeze" for
constructing an all-metal model, the final review mockup.

TM-1 was far more than just a means to get to the next, more advanced,
mockup, however. For several months, Grumman designers used it to study
astronaut mobility and spacecraft-spacesuit interfaces. Astronauts and
company personnel got into and out of suits inside the cabin, practiced
stowing and recharging backpacks, and checked out suit hose connections
with the spacecraft's environmental control system.39

The most important mockup review, in October 1964, centered on
"M-5" - a remarkably detailed model of a complete spacecraft,
including some actual flight equipment inside the cockpit. Even before
the inspection, its prospects for success were discussed in a senior
staff meeting at Houston on 2 October. Comparing Grumman's planned M-5
review with a review held a few days before on the Block II command
module at North American, which one official considered "a good
display for a salesman [but] a poor engineering tool," Max Faget
said that, in his opinion, North American representatives should go to
Grumman to "see what a mockup should look like." M-5 was the
product of two years of configuration studies and the lessons of two
previous inspections.

Formal review of M-5 led off with an examination on 5 and 6 October by
the astronaut corps. On the following day, MSC Director Gilruth and
virtually all the management, engineering, and Apollo leaders from
Houston descended on Grumman to inspect the cabin, electrical wiring,
plumbing, flight controls, displays, radars, propulsion systems (ascent,
descent, and reaction control), environmental control system,
communications system, structures and landing gear, and stowage for
scientific equipment. No piece of the vehicle escaped the review party's
scrutiny and evaluation. The Mockup Review Board* met on 8 October, examined the 148 proposed
changes, and approved 120 of them. These were mostly minor, and none
forced any major redesign. M-5 marked the culmination of the
configuration definition.40

* Board members were Maynard,
Rector, Faget, Kraft, and Donald Slayton from Houston and R. W. Carbee
and Kelly from Bethpage.